


Firelord46 is party leader

by BitterRenegade



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, MMORPGs, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18307802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterRenegade/pseuds/BitterRenegade
Summary: Jester's been a part of the Mighty Nein guild with her online friends in a popular MMORPG. It's hard balancing an online social life and school, but the handsome half-orc that sits next to her in Medieval Lit certainly gives her a reason to try.For the first day of Fjorester Week 2019! AU/Modern!





	1. Chapter 1

That night they were working on a guild run to help the newest member of their guild, TreeTeaL0ver. He’d only started playing the game a month ago, but he and Jester had gotten along quickly. Considering how most of their guild loved to rush into things while her healing spells were still cooling down, having another Cleric in the group made it easier for her to keep everyone alive. Plus, Tree had quickly filled in the role of everyone’s in-game big brother and was one of the best people to play with.

Well, other than Jester’s first and favorite online friend.

_CAPTusktooth has logged in._

Jester smiled at the alert in the bottom right corner and began to type into the guild chat while the others began to spam.

 _FuryoftheSmol: TUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSK! HURRY UP! WE’RE HUNTING GOLEMS IN THE NORTHERN DUNGEON! 3_ _RD_ _FLOOR!_

_Firelord46: We used a hp10 pot on the dungeon altar._

_8LittleSapphire8: Tusk! Hello hello!_

A quickly charging golem hit her character with a rocky fist and sent the cleric flying back. With a panicked shriek, Jester began to spam her potion hotkey while Firelord (the guild’s wizard) started to distract the monster with firebolts. Beauwu ran forward and did a punch combo to take all the golem’s attention off of the magic users.

_Firelord46: Sapph, move farther back._

_8LittleSapphire8: Qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq_

_CAPTusktooth: Saph, be careful. Evening everyone._

Moving her character towards Tree, Jester began to focus on support spells while her party fought. It’d be easier if they had even just one of their tanks, but Tusk needed to get to them and Stormbringer was only ever able to play occasionally.

_Beauwu: sup tusk_

_Beauwu: dont hurry. I've got this._

Jester snorted in amusement when the golem proceeded to knock her friend’s character unconscious

_Beauwu: *** IT KILLED ME._

_Beauwu: SAPH! TREE!_

_8LittleSapphire8: lololololololololololol._

Thankfully at that moment Tusk finally caught up to the group, giving Jester and Tree the time they needed to resurrect Beauwu’s character and bring her health back up to a good 78%. It wasn’t too long until they cleared the dungeon, and then the group decided to head back to town to sell junk items and work on non-combat skills. As soon as they returned to the town Nonagain, another of their DPS guildies, logged in. They split off in their own little groups: Firelord and Fury, Tree with Nonagain and Beauwu, Sapphire and Tusk. Hanging out in game was fun, her online friends were cool, and Jester absolutely _adored_ them all. So the next morning when Beauwu asked if the guild wanted to have a discord server so they could just talk instead of type, of course Jester said yes. It’d be easier during guild runs, and she’d get to know what her online friends sounded like!

But first, she needed to get to class.

When she entered the room for Medieval Literature she had been running late, which sucked because Jester wanted to try and talk to a few people, maybe make some RL friends. Most students were already sitting in little groups, smiling and chatting. The class was mostly half-elves and humans but there were a few other races dotted around the lecture hall. Purple caught her eye, as well as the wave of a tail, and the blue-skinned tiefling was ready to run up to the other tiefling and ask if she could sit with him. He seemed to notice her, as he smiled and waved. “Yasha! Over here!”

“Excuse me,” A beautiful, tall woman passed by Jester but gave the smaller student an awkward smile over her shoulder as she headed towards her tiefling friend.

Jester is glad that she didn’t wave and quickly moves to sit in the closest seat she could find. It’s close to the exit, and she’s a bit amazed that there are so many free seats. The only other person there was a handsome half-orc, typing away on a laptop. Awkwardly, Jester stands up and inches closer to him. “Hello!” No response. “My name’s Jester, do you mind if I sit with you?” She feels a rush of nervousness when he doesn’t answer, and then he looks up and sees her and practically jumps in his seat.

“Ah, sorry!” he smiles a surprisingly tuskless smile. Then he coughs, rubs the back of his neck, and gestures to the seat next to him. “Didn’t realize you were talking to me.” His voice is nice, quiet, and clear so she shrugs her shoulders and takes the seat while the man quickly  gets over his initial embarrassment. “The name’s Fjord, by the way. Jester, right?”

“Right!” Jester practically beams at him and begins to set up her pretty pink laptop. It’s covered in stickers, each one from a game or a book or a TV series that she likes. “Have you had Professor Darrington before?”

“Ah,” Fjord tried and failed to hide his surprise that she was _still_ talking to him. “Yes, last term. Literary Classics. He’s a good instructor, really passionate about the subject.”

“I’m so excited!” Jester gushed, clasping her hands together. “I only really know the instructors in the Fine Arts program, so I was a bit worried about this one.”

“Normally I wouldn’t have taken this class,” Fjord admitted. “Don’t really need it for my degree. But Professor Darrington makes it an interesting subject.”

They chat easily for a couple more minutes before a frazzled instructor practically falls over himself getting to the podium. And the first class is enough for Jester to gauge that Professor Darrington was going to be a blast to have as an instructor. Once the class is over, the pretty blue tiefling jots her phone number down and tears the corner of some sketch paper to hand to her seating buddy. “Let’s have a good term together, Fjord!”

He takes it, fingers barely brushing hers as he takes the note. “Yeah, looking forward to it Jester.”

He texts her almost as soon as she steps out of the lecture hall.

_Fjord: Jester, it’s the awkward guy from your class. Sorry again about that._

_Jester: Hello awkward guy! ^_^ Don’t worry! I’m excited for this class now that I have someone to talk to!_

She logs into the game when she gets home and spams her guildies about the cute guy that she sat with in class. Only Nonagain and CAPTusktooth are on, but Nonagain sends enough exclamation points to make up for their offline friends.

_8LittleSapphire8: I TALKED TO SOMEONE IN CLASS TODAY!!! He was so awkward and cute! >.< _

_Nonagain: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did you get his number?_

_8LittleSapphire8: Yep!_

_Nonagain: thatta girl_

_CAPTusktooth: Saph, how was your class?_

_Nonagain: Trying to change the subject tusk? Are you *gasp* jeaaaalouss????_ _  
_

_CAPTusktooth: what_

_8LittleSapphire8: It was a really good class! The teacher seems really cool_

_CAPTusktooth: i just wanted to know about her class nona, i wasn’t trying to change the subject_

_8LittleSapphire8: normally im nervous about classes when they aren’t for arts but im happy that i was able to talk to someone. I almost embarrassed myself by waving at a stranger in class when they were trying to get their friends attention ;-;_

_Nonagain: aw sweetie_

The conversation devolves into a discussion of their most awkward moments until enough of the guild log on to tackle a particularly hard quest. That night is when Beauwu sends out the discord link. Nonagain admits to knowing Storm irl and he sends her a link so pretty soon all of them were messaging in the server, trying to plan out the best day and time to do a group call. The plan is to wait till all of them are able to hear each other at the same time, just so that it’s fair to everyone even if Jester and Beauwu want to talk each others ears off already. And the first time they all talk, it’s _chaos_ . Fury insists that Firelord should be the leader, which the wizard vehemently refuses to be even though in game it really doesn’t matter who party leader is. The guild’s talk channel ends up being filled with the laughter of the entire guild and Beauwu’s screaming as their entire party dies in a raid because of the distraction that is _them_ . 

Jester smiles to herself as she thinks about how handsome Tusk sounds with his strange accent. It sounds kind of familiar to her, but she isn’t too sure why. Probably just because she’d known him for so long even if she’d never heard him before.

Somehow she ends up running late for Professor Darrington’s class the next week (because she stayed up too late running a dungeon with Fury and Beauwu even though CAPTusktooth warned her. He was always trying to look out for his less responsible online friend) and quickly sends Fjord a text message begging him to save her a seat. When she enters the lecture hall it’s mere minutes before the class is supposed to end and she feels terrible. But when she nearly collapses in the seat next to Fjord, near tears and completely exhausted, the half-orc gives her a pitying look and holds out his water bottle to her.

Jester doesn’t tell him the reason why she basically missed the class because it’s a bit silly, but he doesn’t have another class for a couple of hours and she only had Medieval Literature that day so she strongarms him into letting her buy him lunch in exchange for a copy of his notes. And it’s fun. Jester hasn’t actually eaten lunch with someone in awhile, and Fjord is handsome and nice and she feels comfortable around him even if she hasn’t known him for long. She tells her guildies about it in discord chat later, and Tusk is smug.

_CAPTusktooth: I told you not to stay up too late. You’re lucky that your classmate was nice enough to lend you his notes!_

_FuryoftheSmol: It sounds so romantic! He leant you his water bottle? That’s an indirect kiss!!!_

_8LittleSapphire8: :O_

_CAPTusktooth: Wait, Fury, you wouldn’t share your water with someone who looks like they’re about to faint from exhaustion?”_

_FuryoftheSmol: Bold of you to assume that I’d have water instead of booze on me._

Jester’s in game life goes smoothly, her classes go smoothly. Sometimes she and Fjord study together after class, and she’s happy that now she has an IRL friend. Of course she still tells all her guildies how handsome he is, and then one day, Nonagain makes a request.

_Nonagain: hey take a picture im so curious about your handsome classmate now._

_CAPTusktooth: Saph, you shouldn’t be messaging us while you’re in class._

Jester rolls her eyes and subtly shifts her laptop on her lap and opens her webcam to send her guildies a picture. Fjord isn’t paying any attention to her, instead typing into his laptop and looking between the slides that Professor Darrington has up and back down at his laptop. So Jester grins, holding up her hand in a peace sign with her handsome school friend behind her and taking a quick picture

 _8LittleSapphire8:_ Open Attachment

The clicking on Fjord’s keyboard stops. With a small amount of panic Jester shifts her laptop back to the way it was before, quickly switching back to her notes document and being conspicuously inconspicuous. 

“...Saph?” Fjord says in a voice just above a whisper, using an accent that Jester had only heard over her headphones. Tusk’s accent. Jester whips her head in her friend’s direction, mouth gaping and cheeks flushing a dark blue as the wheels in her mind start turning.

For a moment she’s upset, but not for the reason she thought she would be. Jester glares at Fjord and pokes him. “You said that I shouldn’t be messaging you guys in class!” she whispers accusingly.

From the other side of the lecture hall, the purple tiefling shoots up from his seat and turns towards the two of them. “SAPPHIRE?!”


	2. Nonagain is Party Leader

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> XD people wanted more so I added more. Need to take a bit of a writing break, but I think I’ll add to this sporadically for the next while

Jester sat in front of Nonagain and Stormbringer at the campus coffee shop, feeling both excited and nervous at the chance meeting with the people who she’d known online for so long. As soon as Nona had stood up, calling out for her, Professor Darrington had simply raised an eyebrow and said “Mr. Tealeaf, please sit back down.” Which he did, of course, and the Discord server blew up with spam messages from Nona.

_ Nonagain: SAPPHIRE YOU BEAUTIFUL SOUL, WAIT FOR ME AFTER CLASS!!!!  _

_ Nonagain: I can’t believe you, me, and Storm go to the same school!  _

_ Nonagain: ヾ(;☆ω☆)ノ  _

_ Nonagain: AND YOU’RE A TIEFLING TOO!!!!! AHHHHHHH _

_ Stormbringer: we do play on a local server, but yes, it is exciting. Hello, Saph. _

Jester glanced at Fjord, who had been typing and looking  _ extremely  _ focused at his laptop, a notification quickly popping up in her PM’s. 

_ CAPTusktooth: Please don’t tell them who I am, we’ll talk about it later, but please don’t tell them, Jester. _

_ 8LittleSapphire8: Okay _

She’d switched back to the group chat quickly and began spamming Nona back with surprised emoji’s and agreement to wait for them after class. Which was why, now, she was drinking milk from the cafeteria while Nonagain drank shitty coffee and Stormbringer watched the purple tiefling with a fond expression, drinking tea herself.

“My name’s Mollymauk but you can call me Molly, by the way,” Nona introduced himself, tail swishing behind him. “It’s good to meet you IRL.”

Jester beamed back at him. “It is! My name’s Jester, by the way,” she held out a hand, to which Molly(switching names was going to be a challenge) took it and shook. Storm awkwardly placed her hand on top of both of theirs as well, not looking either of them in the eye.

“I’m Yasha,” she introduced, pulling away quickly and finishing her tea. “I’d really love to stay and talk more, but I’ll need to start heading to work soon…”

“Oh, of course!” Jester clapped her hands together excitedly. “We should definitely hang out properly one of these days!”

Yasha nodded her agreement, pulling her backpack over her shoulder and giving both tieflings a quick hug. “See you, then.”

“Have a good day at work!” Molly called after her, then returned his attention to Jester with an apologetic smile. “Ah, sorry if we’re being too familiar with you. It’s just…”

“Exciting? Fantastic? The best?” Jester offered. Nonaga- Jester inwardly cursed at herself.  _ Molly _ grinned and nodded.

“All three, at the same time,” he took another sip of his coffee. “Maybe… I mean, the three of us have already met now,” his gaze focused on everything but her, and his tail twitched in a way that reminded Jester of her own when she was nervous. “Maybe the others would want to meet too? Yasha’s right, we  _ do _ play on a local server so everyone’s at least within driving distance...”

“We should ask!”

The two of them hung out for a while longer, chatting about anything that came to mind; and Jester was glad that Molly wasn't very different from Nonagain, and Yasha (through their brief interaction) was very much like Stormbringer.

In fact, the only one that Jester was a bit uncertain about was Fjord. The two of them had always gotten along great, both as Sapphire and Tusk  _ and _ as Jester and Fjord. But the accent confused her a bit, as well as his request that she not tell the others. But… she trusted him, so she knew that it couldn’t be bad. Plus, he told her that they would talk about it later, and Tusk had  _ never _ lied to her.

Neither had Fjord, actually.

As she was making her way back home, she received a text from her half-orc friend asking if Jester would be able to meet with him after his final class of the day. With a time and location set, the blue tiefling felt significantly better about the shock from that morning and was looking forward to spending more time with everyone. But man oh man, did she have a lot of discord notifications when she checked again. Spam from literally everyone except for Firelord and Storm. Molly was basically organizing an open-invite, no pressure hang out at a Cafe so that if the rest of the M9 wanted to meet up, they’d be able to. Beauwu was all for it, which made Jester  _ very _ happy. The two of them were basically sisters in-game, so it would be fantastic to see her irl. Firelord and Fury were a bit apprehensive, and Tree was considering it, and Tusk…  _ Fjord _ hadn’t responded.

That was fine though, he was in class and the two of them were going to talk about his whole being Tusk, and her gushing about how handsome he is, and--

The thought hit her like a bag of pastries. Jester had spent weeks,  _ weeks _ raving about her handsome school friend. Her handsome school friend, who was Fjord, who was also Tusk, that had read and responded to all of her messages that had been, she now realized, about  _ him _ . But it was fine, right? It was fine! Fjord was nice, and he  _ was _ handsome. Jester didn’t need to feel embarrassed for speaking the truth!

Later, when they finally met up to talk Jester had already calmed herself down and most of the others had already agreed to go to the meet up. 

“So…” Jester hummed, the two of them sitting side by side much like they did in class. “Do you want me to call you Fjord, or Tusk?”

“Ah,” he coughed, seeming conflicted for a moment before speaking with his normal voice. “Fjord is fine, I don’t… I don’t really have tusks so,” his voice began wavering with the accent usually used in voice chat. “I reckon’ that ‘Tusk’ don’t make much sense.” 

“... What’s the fun in making sense?” Jester asked him curiously, his eyes crinkling in a smile. “Oh, but you can call me either Jester or Saph, I’m me.”

“Then… Jester,” Tusk decides, a light blush dusting his cheeks. Jester also hides a small blush, unused to hearing him say her name with his IG voice. He smiles at her without hiding his mouth, answering an unspoken question. “I… prefer to use an accent talking to folks online,” Tusk continues, looking everywhere but at her. “So I’d appreciate it if you don’t let the others know. I... you don’t mind if I wait till later to explain more? Just a bit... tough.

“Of course I don’t mind, Fjord! You can tell me when you feel comfortable,” she smiles at him brightly, and she hopes that he’ll come to the meetup. They still talk normally, although he seems far less active on the guild chat and in game that week.

Fjord doesn’t. Neither does Firelord or fury. They don’t talk about the meeting at all in the group chat after it happens so as to keep the pressure off the ones who couldn’t make it. Beauwu awkwardly explained that everyone could just call her Beau at the meeting, and Tree is a very calm, almost brotherly Firbolg known as Caduceus. Beauwu was actually taking a few years off school to work full time as an assistant manager at a bookstore off-campus, and Caduceus actually worked at his family’s loose leaf tea shop in one of the smaller districts. Molly and Yasha explained that the two of them were in the University’s theatre program, though Yasha was on the technical side of things. All in all, the meeting went well. Jester just wished that Fjord had come to meet their friends too. 

 

While she could have opted to sit with Molly and Yasha in class, Jester instead chose to keep sitting with Fjord. Molly would take photos of the two of them and forward them to Jester, or even to Beau in the group chat since Beau had seen the picture that led to them meeting IRL, and thought that Jester and Fjord looked cute together. Tusk doesn’t tell them that he is, in fact, Fjord. But the two of them talk to each other during lecture, and Mollymauk Tealeaf would take pictures to tease Jester with.

 

_ Nonagain: Hey everyone, look at how cute @8LittleSapphire8 is with the handsome boy she used to rave about! So sweeeeeet _

 

Jester wants to hide her face in her hands when she sees the picture, one of her and Fjord in the middle of an intense discussion about how the true villain in the story of King Arthur was Merlin. The pretty blue tiefling is obviously mid-rant, Fjord beside her smiling with the softest look in his eyes. And, yeah, the two of them haven’t spoken about her compliments unknowingly directed towards him yet spoken of  _ to  _ him, but it’s  _ fine _ .

 

_ CAPTusktooth:  _ Open Attachment

 

_ CAPTusktooth: Saph’s pretty sweet, isn’t she?  _

 

Jester looks up at the sound of Molly yelping, seeing Yasha covering the purple man’s mouth and apologizing to Professor Darrington. Glances down at her phone and sees that  _ Fjord  _ had sent back a photo of the two of them, this time taken by his sneakiness while Jester was jotting down notes. Turns her head to look at her friend, seeing the blush creeping up his neck as he refuses to look at her.

 

With a small smile she quickly types a response and giggles when Fjord chokes on air.

 

_ 8LittleSapphire8: I am, aren’t I?! And you, Tusk, are very handsome. _

 

_ FuryoftheSmol: Okay so we’re doing another meet up and this time I’m coming. HOW ARE ALL OF YOU GOING TO THE SAME SCHOOL?! _


End file.
